Read by four out of five drunken monkeys, written by the fifth.

Jason Vorhees may have brutally killed people, but he was diligent about mask wearing in public.

Some of you out there may think our country has spiraled into an Orwellian nightmare of oppressive governmental control where citizens inform upon each other to the State over the slightest infraction, resulting in the jackbooted stomping our of civil liberties into the mud like we’re the kulaks of Stalinist Russia.

Of course you are correct.

But let’s look at the bright side: with everyone wearing masks, you don’t have to look at ugly people anymore. Let’s be honest: most of the people you know are not comely. Plus, bad breath is no longer an issue with the masks and social distancing. All those people in the Gulag labor camps never had that luxury.

When your neighbor, beedy-eyed Betty, reports you to the authorities because she knows for a fact you don’t wear a mask when you’re in the shower, you can take solace in the fact that you can’t see beedy-eyed Betty’s gargoyle-like face. (That is of course, after the waves of terror and revulsion stop pulsing through your body.)

Remember: it’s a better world when most of the people you know are more than six feet away from you.

I’m just trying to keep it positive.

Not only did the kulaks suffer immeasurably, they had to do it without masks and in black and white.

According to Ole Bill Shakespeare what you call a thing doesn’t alter its nature; “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” and all that.

Note:not to give anything away, but regardless of the lovely sentiment, things didn’t end well for Juliet.

It seems a court in Northern France disagrees with the Bard of Avon, and has taken a tough stance toward families who give their children odd names.

When one couple in Valenciennes tried to call their child Nutella, the shocked registrar immediately informed the local prosecutor, who took the case to court in the northern city. (But not before first making himself a quick snack, Nutella really is delicious.)

The judge argued that giving the child the name of a chocolate spread was against the girl’s interests as it might lead to mockery and unpleasant remarks. “Children can be horribly cruel to other children who happen to have odd names,” the Honorable Peanut Butter N. Jelly told the court as he wiped a tear of remembrance from his eye. “Besides, Nutella is clearly a boys name.”

The parents did not turn up at the hearing in November, and in their absence the judge ruled that the girl’s name should be shortened from Nutella to Ella. Her full name is now a much more respectable Ella Phant Butt. “Let’s see school children just try to make fun of that,” the court said.

The same court in Valenciennes made similar arguments in January this year before overturning the decision of another couple to name their child Fraise, the French word for strawberry.

The judge said that in particular the girl might face derision from people using the uncouth expression “ramène ta fraise” – a slang saying that translates as “get your ass over here.”

The parents opted instead for Fraisine, an elegant name popular in the 19th century which roughly translates as “get your non-strawberry ass over here.”

“French parents can choose whatever name they want for their offspring,” a registrar said, “but we will occasionally seek to ban or change a moniker that might be deemed against the child’s interests, or if we’re bored, or if someone’s just kind of being prick.”

A family was told in 2009 that they could not name their child after the French cartoon character Titeuf.

French cartoon character Titeuf–forget the name, I want my children to have that hairstyle.

Note:I’ve never been more glad to live in the United States; I fully plan to name my first child Magilla Gorilla, and I don’t want the courts messing around with my daughter’s name.

The name Magilla Gorilla just oozes class.

But the French courts don’t reserve this right for just human names. A dog owner in eastern France has been forced to change the names of his dogs, Itler and Iva, because they clearly “make people think of Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.”

The unnamed owner argued that the names, Itler and Iva, had nothing to do with Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun. He grudgingly changed his dogs’ names to Iliso and Isio 4, but admitted he probably shouldn’t have shaved the swastikas into their fur.

And finally, in France you cannot call a pig Napoleon, due to a law aimed at preserving the image of the Emperor which remains on the statute books.

For shame, George Orwell. For shame.

Napoleon from George Orwell’s Animal Farm. For shame, George Orwell.

Addendum:

Jacques Faucheux has petitioned the court to have his son’s name (Son-Of-Flaccid-Penis Faucheux) changed. And he was a real prick about it.

The court granted his petition, and changed his son’s name to My-Fathers-A-Prick Faucheux.

Now that I’ve made the decision to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel, there are few slight logistical wrinkles that need to be ironed out.

First and foremost: I need a barrel. I have several vital requirements for the barrel I choose for my journey over the falls:

It must be watertight enough to endure the 681,750 gallons of water that travel over the falls per second, without filling with water and killing me horribly.

It has to be sturdy enough to endure the 2,509 tons of force created by the 681,750 gallons of water that travel over the falls without losing structural integrity and killing me horribly.

It must be able to withstand the 167 foot drop without bursting on impact and killing me horribly.

It must be spacious enough for me to comfortably fit into. (I don’t like to be cramped almost as much as I don’t like to be killed horribly.)

It must fit onto the top of a Mercury Marquis. (I have bungee cords.)

My search for a suitable barrel has been less than fruitful.

It’s startling just how unhelpful the employees of Home Depot are when comes to barrel shopping.

You wouldn’t believe the slack-jawed looks I get when I ask them where they keep their barrels for going over waterfalls–they gape at me like I’m a moron.

The people at Ace Hardware are even less helpful. Their little jingle: “Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks” is a blatant and disgusting lie. It should be: “Ace is the place where smug judgmental pricks named Rob question your mental stability.”

I went to a web site of the deceivingly named Crate & Barrel–completely useless unless you plan to go over Niagara Falls on an overpriced chaise lounge.

Local rich lady Delores Kostara, who owns an expensive house on Lake Erie, is requesting that taxpayers pay to have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers somehow reroute Lake Erie so she can continue to enjoy the beautiful sunsets. Kostara says the Army Corps of Engineers should drop all their other projects, and focus their […]

So Ron was just standing there, and suddenly this llama comes bursting out of the brush, runs right past the whole group of us and bites Ron on the testicles. It was like the llama singled him out. I mean, Ron is a giant prick, but how would the llama know that?

Now the llama is just shaking Ron by his crotch and Ron is screeching in agony; that llama had some nasty jagged teeth. So then the llama lets go of Ron’s crotch and it turns around really quickly, so we’re all thinking it’s over and the llama’s just going to run away, but instead it kicks Ron in the face. Ron has nasty jagged teeth now too.

At this point Ron’s just lying there on the ground in a crumpled whimpering mass and the llama stands over him and pees on him. Then the llama just gallops away and back into the brush like it’s proud of itself.

Then someone exclaims, “holy shit, why is there even a llama running around in western Pennsylvania?”

The person then punctuates the story by saying, “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.”

But you’re thinking to yourself: I would definitely wish that on my worst enemy; I’m kind of glad it happened to Ron. Then you giggle a bit as you imagine it happening to your worst enemy.

Then you start thinking: I wonder if I could find that llama and make it happen to my worst enemy. It can’t be that hard to find: a stray llama in western Pennsylvania. Then you start wondering why the word llama is spelled with two l’s at the beginning, but you quickly revert back to wishing a llama attack upon your worst enemy.

You could record it and put it on YouTube; that would be awesome! Now you’re starting to get a little exited at the prospect of your worst enemy being the victim of vicious llama attack.

You realize there’s almost nothing you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy.

You’d wish bad things on people who mildly annoy you. Like that time you got stuck on an elevator with that mime; no invisible wall is going to stop a kick to the face from a llama, you stupid mime. You giggle a little imaging it.

You start wondering if the whole llama thing with Ron wasn’t set-up in the first place; Ron really is a prick.

On March 15, 44 BC. Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Theatre of Pompey at a meeting of the senate by as many as 60 conspirators.

Note:The Theatre of Pompey was showing the remake of Footloose at the time. It was the second most disappointing part of Caesar’s day.

Upon realizing one the conspirators was his friend Brutus, he uttered the now infamous phrase, “Et tu Bluto.”

It was at that point Brutus became enraged and screamed, “Bluto is the character from the Popeye cartoons you imbecile; my name is Brutus. How many times do I have to tell you that?” Brutus then stabbed Caesar repeatedly.

Bluto and Brutus are not the same person. Just ask that smug tenth grade English teacher of yours.

Historians will tell you Julius Caesar’s assassination was politically motivated and the result of rising tensions between Caesar and the Senate. Historians will also tell you several Senators feared Caesar would overthrow the Senate in favor of tyranny. Historians are always blathering on about something in the past.

Well, historians are full of it.

I know the real story: everyone was just sick of Caesar forcing them to put anchovies on their salads.–anchovies are gross.

Final Note: the word assassination has the word ass in it twice. That amuses me more than it should.

A delicious plate of Caesar Salad. Because there is nothing more appetizing than dead rotting fish.

Idiot: a dolt, a dullard, a mentally deficient person, the guy who drives down the road with his seatbelt hanging from the door making sparks on the road.

idiotpruf: Any lesson learned as the direct result of an overt act of idiocy, or the observation of an overt act of idiocy. An act that proves that you are in fact an idiot.

Example: If you don’t want to be mocked by other motorist; don’t drive down the road with your seatbelt hanging from the door making sparks on the road.

I’ve been compiling a list of idiotprufs based on my own acts of idiocy, from observing the acts of idiocy of others, and from stories I’ve been told.

Just a Few idiotprufs

Regardless of how far your garden hose sprays; you’re still too close to the bees nest.

Being asked,”and what did we learn today,” as bee stingers are being pulled from your face, is the epitome of adding insult to injury.

Don’t try to remove a hornet’s nest from your garage by burning it out; you will wind up with half a garage, and a hornet’s nest.

You never want to find out the quantifying measure for the phrase, mad as a hornet.

Firemen like to say snide things as they hose down the side of your garage.

Regardless of how sturdy an umbrella seems, it is not an adequate substitute for a parachute.

You can be lying in a crumpled mass in the dirt, broken bones (some of them relatively important) jutting through your skin, and the first thing an adult will think to say is “what in the world did you think would happen if you jumped off the roof?”

Never try to pound a nail into something above your head using the dull side of a hatchet; misusing a hatchet in this way might cause its head to pop off.

A hatchet head only has to fall a foot or two to cause a considerable amount of damage to a human skull.

Head wounds bleed a lot.

If you don’t want to be bitten by the big brown snake; don’t poke at it with a stick.

Snake bites bleed a lot.

The average household vacuum cleaner is not designed to pick up paperclips; attempting to do so may cause the average household vacuum cleaner to explode and catch on fire.

A burning vacuum cleaner may also ignite the carpet.

A burning carpet will set off every smoke alarm in the house.

Smoke alarms are loud.

Melting Play-Doh in a frying pan seems like a brilliant scientific experiment to a child.

That child’s mother: not so much.

Burning Play-Doh will set off a smoke alarm.

Smoke alarms are loud.

One errant sock in the laundry can turn an entire load of whites into a load of pinks.

“Hey, you know that pink sweatshirt you love so much?” is not a good way to tell your roommate that you’ve turned the laundry pink.

A healthy dose of bleach will turn anything white.

A healthy dose of bleach will also give you a pile of really white rags.

“Hey, you know that really white sweatshirt full of holes you love so much?” is not a good way to tell your roommate that you’ve used too much bleach on the laundry.

A car that has been run out of motor oil, is less of automobile, and more of giant metal traffic clogger.

Asking your girlfriend, whose car has been run out of motor oil, if she knows why it’s called a dipstick, is a really bad idea.

When your girlfriend asks, “how stupid do you think I am?” she is not looking for a quantifying answer.

The phrase “some day we’ll look back at this and laugh” doesn’t always apply.

Seriously, I literally have hundreds of these.

I’m finding that everybody has some, do you?

Addendum

The actual word idiot-proof is a misnomer; there is nothing a true idiot can’t screw-up when given the chance.

It would seem not everyone got the message the first time this post was published. So here it is again–soak it in.

Why is this world polluted with people who are determined to make me dance? Loud, pushy, abrasive, overbearing, manipulative, overlords of what is or is not judged to be enjoyable. People who won’t take no for an answer. People who believe they have a better grasp of what’s in my brain than I do.

What I say: I don’t want to dance.

What they hear: I pretend I don’t want to dance, but secretly, it’s my deepest yearning. If it weren’t for debilitating fear and self-loathing, I’d be out on the dance floor right now, living the dream.

What I say: seriously, I don’t want to dance.

What they hear: if only there were some loud, pushy, abrasive, overbearing, manipulative, overlord of what is or is not judged to be enjoyable, to goad and badger me into doing what I’ve secretly always wanted to do anyway.

What I say: get away from me you drooling half-wit.

What they hear: grab my arm like a slack-jawed oaf, and physically drag me onto the dance floor.

I am not responsible for anything that happens from that moment forward. I am certain the person who coined the phrase, “justifiable homicide” was just some poor fellow who earnestly didn’t want to dance.

Note: I’m sure when his jaw is no longer wired shut, the person described in the scenario above, will apologize to me.

Let’s make one thing clear: just because you like a certain thing, it doesn’t follow that every other human should also like that thing. Loads of different people like loads of different things.

Jeffrey Dahmer quite enjoyed killing people, hacking them up, eating them, and stowing the leftovers in his freezer. I can write with a relative degree of certainty, most human beings wouldn’t much care for that.

I have never once thought to myself: killing people, hacking them up, eating them, and stowing the leftovers in my freezer, seems like a horrific and frankly evil thing to do…but Jeffrey Dahmer thought it was a lovely thing to do. Perhaps I’m looking at this all backwards. I’ve got plenty of room in my freezer, and there are several acquaintances in my sphere of influence I could readily live without (mostly the few who try to make me dance).

If only the local learning annex offered some course on beginner cannibalism. It’s all scrapbooking this and scrapbooking that, down at that place.

And I don’t need to be the center of attention to enjoy myself–in fact, it’s preferable not to be.

Just because I’m not standing on a chair, singing Love Shack at the top of my lungs, juggling shot-glasses, while I wildly thrust my hips into the air in a suggestive manner, doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying myself.

I don’t see life through the same self-absorbed prism as you.

You imagine I’m thinking: if only I could summon the courage, that would be me on that chair.

When I’m really thinking: if only I could summon the courage, I would kick that chair from under that jackasses feet. That would make me smile.

Also, don’t tell me to smile.

I smile plenty.

I smile when it’s appropriate.

I smile when I’m happy, when I’m with my friends, when something good happens.

I smile when a jackass falls from his chair and shot-glasses cascade across his face.

Note: sometimes I summon the courage.

People who go around smiling for no apparent reason are mental. I am not mental (fingers crossed).

This is how you appear to the rest of the world.

Being a naturally quiet person or an introvert is not a problem that needs to be fixed–just leave me be.

I’ve recently encountered some individuals who said they hate Christmas or they can’t wait for the Christmas season to be over.

What is the matter with you people, don’t you know it’s the most wonderful time of the year? Andy Williams told us so in song form. Are you going to contradict Andy Williams? Andy Williams was a national treasure you heartless goons.

I had a friend (not the one with genital chiggers) tell me he couldn’t wait for Christmas to be over: the obligations, the expense, the forced family get-togethers with people he really didn’t care for.

It’s a crying shame.

But I had another friend (the one with the genital chiggers) tell me how much he loved Christmas: the decorations, the songs, the eggnog (the best of all nogs), the gifts, and the general spirit of giving.

I wanted to shake his hand, but he had been doing a crazy amount of crotch itching due to the genital chiggers. I told him there was a powder he could get, but he said he had used the powder and the chiggers thought it was Christmas, formed a big circle and sang Christmas carols like the Whos in Whoville.

Speaking of the Whos in Whoville: don’t you Christmas haters remember when the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes when he finally understood the true meaning of Christmas?

Note:if your heart grows three sizes, you have a pretty severe medical condition–you’re probably going to die. You should definitely seek medical help as quickly as possible.

But that’s not the point.

Don’t you Christmas haters remember when Scrooge McDuck awoke on Christmas morning to discover the spirits had done it all in one night and he hadn’t missed Christmas. He took a bag of toys and a turkey to the Cratchit’s home.

It does seem strange: a duck eating a turkey. Some kind of weird fowl cannibalism going on there. Still, Scrooge kept Christmas from that point forward and he kept it well.

Note:if you’re a young couple about to have twins, I implore you to name them Ignorance and Wont. They’ll hate you for it, but it’ll be a great conversation starter every Christmas.

Don’t you Christmas haters remember when Jimmy Stewart’s character thought he had killed Lee Marvin’s character, but it was in fact, John Wayne’s character who had killed Lee Marvin’s character and…

Sorry, that’s the wrong Jimmy Stewart movie. That’s from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a great movie, but not very Christmassy.

Don’t you Christmas haters remember when George Bailey realized he was the richest man in Bedford Falls because he had friends and family and had made a difference in so many lives? Do you not remember that! It was so freaking heart warming!

Look at how happy Jimmy Stewart is. It’s as if he’s just shot Lee Marvin.

And don’t all you Christmas haters remember when Charlie Brown asks, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about.”

Linus replies, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”

Linus then moves to center stage and says this:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding
in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them,
and the glory of the Lord shone round about them:
and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy,
which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord.